From incarceration to the labour market: Innovative approaches to integrating former detainees into the workforce

Enhancing Employment Opportunities for Former Detainees

The transition from incarceration to employment presents significant challenges, primarily due to a lack of education and training that hinders former detainees’ competitiveness in today’s employment landscape. Furthermore, their limited connections within the labour market exacerbate these difficulties.

To mitigate these issues, the original STEPS project focused on facilitating the re-socialisation and inclusion of young people involved in the justice system, as well as those in precarious situations (e.g., refugees, and migrants, among others). This initiative leveraged sports as a recreational activity to engage and inspire the target groups. Building upon the success of this project, the partners moved forward with the NEXT STEPS initiative.

The NEXT STEPS project, funded by the European Union, aimed to develop and test a systematic process for placing former detainees in the labour market. Recently, the consortium achieved a key milestone by completing the compilation of a database comprising seventy-eight volunteer organisations and companies willing to offer internships and jobs to former inmates.

Beyond establishing the database, the NEXT STEPS initiative organised training workshops for prison staff and volunteers across the participating countries. These workshops equipped participants with tools to objectively document the key competencies of incarcerated individuals, crucial for steering them towards future employment.

Reintegration Processes and Recommendations from the NEXT STEPS Project

The reintegration process varies significantly across different countries and prison establishments. NEXT STEPS undertook the complex challenge of delineating the processes in each of the consortium countries to better comprehend their functioning. This documentation was created using the information gathered throughout the project.

While there are isolated efforts to integrate formerly incarcerated individuals into the labour market, these efforts often lack the involvement of all necessary stakeholders. Implementing a comprehensive and effective reintegration process is inherently complex and time-consuming. 

Each country has identified significant positive initiatives, however, scaling these success stories is often hampered by insufficient funding or systemic collaboration issues among various organisations. While these issues require high-level reforms for policy coordination and resource investment across sectors (including justice, education and labour), some steps can be initiated at a prison-community level to remove practices that hinder the reintegration process.